You have a chance to help stop discrimination against home schoolers in college! Home School Legal Defense Association is working with the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee to pass House Resolution 4866 containing language ending discrimination for home schoolers seeking financial aid and college admissions. As a result of some political wrangling, H.R. 4866 was defeated on the House floor in July. We need your calls now to resurrect and pass this bill that includes important fixes for home school students.

Requested Action:

Please call your Congressman (if he is listed below) and Minority Leader Dick Gephardt and give him the following message:

"Your vote against H.R. 4866 is hurting students pursuing higher education. We thought you were pro education. Please vote YES for the Higher Education Technical Amendments bill when it is brought for a vote on the House floor."

Please call Tuesday, September 3 through Friday, September 6. There is no need to identify your self as a home schooler.

Congressman Dick Gephardt and 176 other Congressmen worked together to defeat a bill that would stop unfair treatment of home schoolers seeking college admissions. On July 7, 2002, Minority Leader Dick Gephardt stopped the Higher Education Technical Amendments bill, H.R. 4866. This bill was supposed to be non controversial since both political parties had agreed to the content of the bill. Consequently, the bill was placed on the suspension calendar (a unique legislative process whereby the legislation skips committee and goes directly to the floor). Suspension is usually reserved for popular and non-divisive legislation since passage requires a 2/3 majority. Unfortunately, political reasons, Mr. Gephardt decided he would kill the bill and found enough no votes to defeat it on the House floor. The vote was 246 to 177 -just short of the 2/3 majority needed.

Because of Mr. Gephardt and all those voting against H.R. 4866, colleges may continue to discriminate against home schoolers because the law is unclear. H.R. 4866 would make several technical corrections to the higher education law that would permanently solve the problems home schooled students are having with universities. Colleges often reject home schoolers under the age of 18 because these schools are afraid they would lose their "institutional eligibility" for public funds if they admit home schoolers. This fear stems from the 1998 Higher Education law that was poorly defined in the Federal Student Handbook by the Clinton Administration. This contained wrongly interpreted the law and was distributed to colleges at the beginning of the 2001 school year. In January 2002, HSLDA obtained a copy of this manual and determined it to be the source of the confusion.

The manual stated, "Note, however, that [home schooled] students must be above the age of compulsory attendance in order for your school to enroll them without jeopardizing its institutional eligibility." This interpretation is inaccurate and discriminatory.

HSLDA worked closely with the Department of Education's attorneys who sent a clarifying letter to colleges ensuring them that they would not lose their institutional eligibility. Nonetheless, HSLDA continues to battle with colleges over this problem.

To permanently solve this problem, we have worked closely with the House Education and Workforce Committee to clarify the confusing law in H.R. 4866. Despite our hard work, Congressman Gephardt and 176 of his colleague have decided that political maneuvering is more important that home school freedom, defeating these important fixes.

HSLDA has requested the House leadership bring this bill up for another vote this September.

Please, call your Congressman if he is listed below and ask him to vote YES to the Higher Education Technical Amendments bill.